


Infinite Sky: Omake

by Nalanzu



Series: World of Infinite Sky [4]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Body Horror, Canon-Typical Violence, Explicit Language, Fluff, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Plague
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-30
Updated: 2018-03-05
Packaged: 2019-03-11 07:19:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 9,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13519257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nalanzu/pseuds/Nalanzu
Summary: Scenes from alternative points of view belonging to Infinite Sky.





	1. Naruto & Shizune

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place during Chapter 1 of Infinite Sky.

“Oh my god that was _hard,_ ” Naruto said, sagging against the wall. If his little tray of medical equipment had still been in his hands, Shizune was sure he would have dropped it. “How do you even do that all the time?”

“It’s another aspect of chakra manipulation,” Shizune said. “You have to learn how to regulate your voice and your expressions. You’ve got some work to do.”

“Yeah, but he’s crazy! He’s completely crazy! He thinks he knows me! And that that crazy jounin Kakashi was an instructor with his own genin team! That I was on!” Naruto was waving his hands wildly without moving away from the wall, and Shizune bit her lip to keep from smiling.

“Well, it was a good first lesson, then,” she said, leaning against her desk and crossing her ankles. “If you can keep your composure in the face of that much crazy, you’ll learn quickly.”

“That was a lot of crazy,” Naruto agreed.

“The Hokage is waiting for your report,” Shizune said, when it was clear that Naruto wasn’t actually going to move unless she prodded him.

“Oh, right!” Energy apparently restored, Naruto bounded upright. “Hey, next time someone goes in to talk to the crazy Uchiha, I want to do it. For the practice!”

“We’ll see,” Shizune said, smiling. Actual trained interrogators were going to handle the crazy Uchiha, as Naruto put it, but it had been in invaluable learning experience. And apparently the boy trusted Naruto; not that that was anything new, because everyone trusted Naruto, but this boy had trusted him before he’d even walked into the room.

“Hey,” Naruto said, and Shizune looked up. Apparently he hadn’t left after all.

“What else do you need?” she asked, trying to sound patient. Uchiha Sasuke was just another mess on top of an already insanely busy week.

“Are you ever going to let him out?” Naruto asked.

“Probably,” Shizune said. “Why do you ask?”

“He’s a little creepy,” Naruto said, uncharacteristically sober. “The way he keeps looking at me. As if he’s expecting me to be somebody else.”

“Well,” Shizune said. “If he believes what he says, then that’s exactly what he’s expecting.”

“I guess,” Naruto said, and then his trademark smile was back. “I guess I’ll just have to keep being me until he stops looking for the other guy.”

“Uh huh,” Shizune said. “You do that. Naruto, I have a lot of work and –“ The door banging closed behind him cut off the rest of her sentence.


	2. Mist Ninja

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place during Chapter 3 of Infinite Sky.

No light glinted off a forehead protector, because the Mist ninja sneaking into the Village of the Hidden leaf wasn’t wearing one. His clothes appeared at first glance to be civilian clothes, although a trained eye lingering just a little too long would give that assumption the lie. The Mist ninja hadn’t lingered anywhere long enough for a trained eye to see him clearly enough, though.

The residence he’d been directed to visit once the hospital was placed under quarantine was easy enough for him to find; he’d been given an accurate map and the house had a distinctive outline. The ninja channeled just enough chakra to his hands and feet to cling to unlikely perches as he made his way up the back wall and toward a small window.

“…so I’m leaving day after tomorrow,” said someone from the next window over, and the Mist ninja damped his chakra down a little more. He was fairly sure he wouldn’t be detected, but sometimes the remnants of the Leaf army could be surprising.

The wall muffled whatever reply the Mist ninja’s target made, and he got to work identifying the traps on his chosen window before he settled down to wait. His clothes were dark enough that he wouldn’t be seen clinging to the wall as long as he was gone by false dawn.

“I know, but try to get along with him while I’m gone,” said the same someone as before, and the sound of two sets footsteps echoed through the walls.  The Mist ninja filed away that information for transmission; the Namikaze father-son pair had had a rather interesting house guest for several weeks, and his secondary objective was to find as much information as he could.

The Mist ninja started on the traps, disabling most of them in just a few seconds; this was why he had been chosen, after all. His specialty was physical infiltration, and he was the best.  The final trap diffused, he unlocked the window and slipped inside. He took a small box out of the pouch at his side and checked the contents with a small pulse of chakra.  Nothing inside had broken, so he opened it carefully and removed a single tiny capsule before closing the box and replacing it.

A time-release technique wouldn’t take much chakra, but the Mist ninja didn’t want to take the chance that it would be detected. He unspooled a slender chakra thread, linking his left hand to the capsule, and placed it in the pile of crumpled bedding in the corner. The cover still held the warmth of a recent occupant, and the Mist ninja allowed himself a small smile.

The rest of the house would have garnered data on the Namikaze house guest, but the Mist ninja could already hear someone returning to the bedroom. The secondary objective wasn’t a high priority, and he made preparations to leave.

Capsule placed and chakra thread securely fastened, he climbed out the same window and began to reset the traps. Once the final trap had been reset, he clicked the window closed and sent a tiny pulse of chakra down the thread. The capsule dissolved into a tiny puff of smoke, but the Mist ninja had let the thread fall away from his hand and was three houses away by the time the smoke began to dissipate.

“Beta objective two accomplished,” he whispered, just in case the information hadn’t been properly sent through the web around his eyes and ears. “Contamination of Namikaze Minato’s personal belongings,” he added, although those listening knew very well what beta objective two was. A wordless pulse of affirmation nearly overwhelmed his senses and he stumbled as he landed on the street. None of the few passersby noticed, though, wrapped up as they were in their own concerns, and the Mist ninja melted back into the shadows.


	3. The Third, Minato, & Shizune

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place between Chapters 3 & 4 of Infinite Sky.

“You can’t go in there,” Shizune said, staring in horror.

The Third Hokage simply looked at her, infinitely patient and infinitely determined.

“You know – you must know – that we have no idea how this virus is transmitted.” Shizune was at least self-aware enough to drop her voice, standing out in the middle of the street in front of the Namikaze residence. “The chakra shields and the sealed plastic seem to keep it contained, but we’ve had incidences of infection despite undergoing full decontamination procedures.”

“There have also been cases of the healthy and the sick breathing the same air and the healthy showing no signs of infection,” the Third reminded her.

“That doesn’t make it better!” Shizune said. “That just means we still have no idea how not to catch this! Even standing here puts you in danger.”

“Shizune.” The Third smiled. He was 73 years old – ancient by even a civilian reckoning, an age unheard of for a ninja. Shizune knew how frail he was now, despite the appearance of strength. She was absolutely certain that going inside that house would kill him, and he wasn’t listening.

“I can carry messages,” she started hopefully.

“I need to speak to Minato face to face,” the Third said, and he suddenly looked weary.

“Lord Hokage,” Shizune said, still trying. “Namikaze Minato is dying. He isn’t expected to survive the rest of the night.”

“That is why I must speak to him now,” the Third said patiently, as if she were missing something perfectly obvious.

“You want to say goodbye?” Shizune guessed. She hadn’t thought the Third had that much sentimentality in him; even though he’d chosen Minato as his successor a long time ago, the choice had clearly been wrong. Namikaze Minato had been nothing but a disgrace and a disappointment for years, and Shizune wasn’t sure half the village even remembered he was still alive.

“You may accompany me, if you wish,” the Third said, and a little of the smile was back. It even reached his eyes, although it did nothing to lessen the signs of age.

“Yes, Lord Hokage.” Shizune helped the Third into the hopefully protective suit, fastening it in place.  It wasn’t entirely airtight, for they still needed to breathe, but it seemed better than nothing. She donned her own suit, and followed the Hokage into the Namikaze residence.

The entire house had been sealed off from the outside, but the interior wasn’t simply open.  There was a clear entrance and exit, both tunnels with decontamination areas and sealed doorways leading to and from the bedroom in the back on the second floor. Shizune trailed behind, following procedure as strictly as she ever had, until the final door swung open.

Minato lay on his side, eyes closed, breathing shallowly. A bed had been brought in, as well as the appropriate machines to monitor his condition.  He was under continuous observation, although it was mostly performed remotely to reduce chances of infection, and there was no one else in the room. Shizune closed the door, and took up a position in the corner.

The Third walked steadily to Minato’s bedside, sitting on the stool that had been brought in for precisely that purpose. It hadn’t been used before.

“Minato,” the Third said gently, placing one gloved hand on the sick man’s shoulder. “I need you to wake up.”

For a moment, Shizune thought that nothing would happen, and the Third would see that Minato was unresponsive and that this was senseless, and they could go. Then Minato stirred, and she realized that the Third was channeling a very fine thread of chakra into him.

“Sir,” Minato said, voice rusty with disuse, and the chakra thread ceased.

“Minato, stop this nonsense.” The Third’s face was stern, but his tone was almost kind.

“I don’t…” Minato said, and his voice failed. He coughed and tried again. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said into the pillow.

“Sit up,” the Third said, and gave Shizune a look. She stepped forward and arranged the bed and the pillows until Minato was at least giving a convincing impression of sitting.  The former Fourth did nothing to assist, sullenly embodying passive resistance.

“Lord Hokage,” Shizune tried to say, but the Third barely flicked his eyes in her direction and she found herself back in the corner, waiting.

“Minato,” the Third said again. “You have to stop this.”

“This is better,” Minato said. His eyes were fever-bright, his face too pale except where spots of red burned high on his cheekbones. He coughed again, this time bringing his hands up to cover his face, and Shizune saw the dark ink of confining seals inside his forearms. It was a very rare set of seals, one that prevented the one so sealed from self-harm. She’d seen it twice, now. “It should have happened years ago,” Minato added, dropping his hands back to his lap and hiding the seals against the blankets.

The atmosphere chilled, and Shizune just barely stopped herself from shivering.

“You can’t run away,” the Third said. For just a moment, his voice was young and dangerous.

“I would have taken responsibility and performed atonement,” Minato said, almost too quietly for Shizune to hear.

“You would have fled and died like a coward,” the Third snapped.  “Instead, you lived like one.” The age and weariness were back in his voice now.

Minato looked away, twisting his fingers together. “This wasn’t supposed to happen,” he said, even more quietly than before, and Shizune wasn’t sure he’d meant to speak out loud at all.

“It happened,” the Third said ruthlessly. “The demon fox was stolen. People died. Hidden villages were destroyed. This is your chance to make things right.”

“Nothing will ever be right again!” Minato shouted, sitting upright and radiating fury and strength for perhaps half a second before slumping back against the pillows.

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Shizune couldn’t see the Third’s face from where she was standing, but she knew that tone – the one reserved for moments of supreme idiocy in the Third’s subordinates. “The past cannot be changed. The future can. Your son –“

“You leave my son out of this,” Minato said. “I won’t have him involved in your hopeless revolution.”

“We’re not the ones without hope,” the Third was saying, but Shizune wasn’t listening. She’d barely managed not to jerk in surprise, and she was fairly sure she’d at least twitched. Was Minato not aware of how deeply his son was already involved? How crucial he was to the revolution, even aside from his role as potential Sacrifice?

Naruto brought hope and life and love wherever he went – even coming from what Shizune now saw must have been a household consumed by sadness and regret, he was a shining beacon of optimism.  She had no idea how he did it, but he was so like the little she remembered of his mother.

“I will not!” Minato said suddenly, jerking Shizune’s attention back to the scene in front of her. “Absolutely not.”

“Minato, the only hope we have of setting things right is to remove Tobi’s source of power,” the Third said, with the air of someone who has said the same words many times. “The Nine Tails has to be sealed.”

“Even if I could seal it – and I can’t – there’s no way I would let you seal it into my son.” Minato’s entire face was flushed now, almost pink with anger, and his fists were clenched. He almost looked like the man who had been Fourth Hokage nearly twenty years before, focused and determined.

“Your son has exactly the right type of chakra,” the Third said implacably. “He has enough of it to restrain the fox. He inherited that from his mother.”

“I won’t put him through that,” Minato said, and the air of determination around him grew stronger.

“Your son is an adult,” the Third reminded him. “He’s been an adult since his promotion.”

“A twelve year old is not an adult,” Minato said. “No matter what rank you gave him then, he was still just a boy.”

“He is a ninja of the Leaf,” the Third said, biting off every word and leaning back to sit perfectly straight. “He is my subordinate, not just your child, and he is both willing and eager to serve his village.”

“Brainwashed like all the rest,” Minato muttered, and Shizune was absolutely certain he didn’t even realize he’d said that out loud.

“I will not order you as your Hokage,” the Third said.  “You haven’t been a ninja of the Leaf in years, and any punishment I would give you when you refused to obey would either be meaningless or end in your death.”

Minato finally looked up at that, confusion creasing his brow.  Shizune knew exactly what the Third had implied, though, and she wasn’t entirely sure that it wasn’t better. “Then what?” he asked softly, the tension draining away and leaving him limp against the bed again.  His hands remained tightly fisted into the sheets, though, belying the lack of energy he was trying to show.

“If you won’t perform the seal, someone else will.” The Third covered Minato’s fist with one surprisingly gentle hand. “I won’t stop you from running away,” he said, surprisingly gently, and turned Minato’s arm over to reveal the ink. “But you’re the best chance of making sure the Nine Tails is sealed, and sealed properly, without harm coming to your son.”

The Third dropped Minato’s arm and his hands flashed in a series of seals, ending with the word “Release!”  The ink faded away like smoke drifting into the air and dissipating. Minato stared in wonder at the pale skin, which Shizune could now see was marked with scars.

“I won’t stop you again,” the Third said.

“You…” Minato’s voice gave out again, and he pressed his hands into his eyes. “No one else can seal the fox,” he said. “You have no one else.”

“I have an Uchiha,” the Third said, folding his hands together.

“Not the boy.” Minato dropped his hands and glared. “Not the boy who’s been living here. You can’t possibly trust him.”

“What other choice do I have?” The Third chuckled. “It’s him, or it’s you, and frankly, he has more chakra and better control than you do.”

“He’s completely insane,” Minato snapped, and Shizune blinked. Something indefinable had changed; he looked more alive than he had since she and the Third had stepped into the room.

“He’s quite functional, I assure you.” The Third sounded almost wry, but Shizune – and Minato – noticed that he didn’t disagree with the assessment of Uchiha Sasuke’s sanity.

“That’s not the same thing as sane,” Minato said, and shifted. “Fine. I’ll do it.”

“Excellent.” The Third produced a scroll and a brush out of apparently nowhere, and Shizune did twitch this time. Scrolls were nearly impossible to decontaminate without destroying.  “Sign it. In blood.”

“You fight dirty,” Minato grumbled, but he took the brush. “The only reason I’m doing this is to keep that lunatic as far away from my son as possible.”

“That lunatic, as you put it, has been living in your house for months,” the Third pointed out, handing Minato a small blade to prick his thumb. Minato smeared a bloody print onto the scroll next to his name. The Third cleaned the blade and put it away.

“That’s not even close to the same thing.” Minato folded his arms across his chest, thumb sluggishly bleeding onto the sheets. 

The Third removed one of his protective gloves, and Shizune grabbed his wrists just barely too late. “What are you doing?” she nearly shouted.

“The contract must bind me as well,” the Third said evenly, removing the other glove despite Shizune’s attempts to stop him.  He gashed open his own thumb and marked the scroll below his own signature.

“Surely you could do that outside, where the risk of infection –“ Shizune began.

“Minato needs to see this happen,” the Third said, closing the cut with a flare of chakra and slipping the gloves back on. He held the scroll carefully until the ink and the blood had both soaked into its thick fibers. “Welcome back to the Leaf, Minato.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Minato said weakly, and Shizune glanced at him. Whatever reservoir of strength he’d drawn on for the argument was gone now, and he was nearly asleep.  It wasn’t the half-dead state of unconsciousness he’d been in when she arrived, though; for the first time, Shizune thought he might actually recover.  At a nod from the Third, she helped him to lie flat again.

“Sir,” she said, reaching for the scroll.

“Shizune,” the Third said, not letting her have it.

“I don’t want to destroy it,” Shizune said. “But I need to decontaminate it, and I have the highest success rate for decontaminating documents without irreparably damaging them.”

The Third laughed. “Very well,” he said.

On the way out, Shizune followed all the decontamination procedures to the letter, hoping that the brief exposure the Third had braved would not prove to be disastrous, but it made no difference.

Five days later, Namikaze Minato had fully recovered, but the Third Hokage was dead.


	4. Hizashi & Hiashi

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place during Chapter 4 of Infinite Sky

Hiashi sat back on his heels, looking down at the body of his nephew. Hizashi knelt beside him, hands folded over his lap.  “You’re right,” Hiashi said. “The chakra degradation is unmistakable.”

“I know I’m right,” Hizashi said, almost preternaturally calm. “The flaw doesn’t show up often, but Neji clearly had it.”

“Apparently the Sharingan user didn’t know about it, or he wouldn’t have risked such a crude technique,” Hiashi said, and the two of them began to prepare the body for cremation.

“We’re agreed, then, that it was improper use of the Sharingan that killed my son.” Hizashi’s voice was almost empty.

“The signs are there,” Hiashi agreed. “However, given the delicate nature of the current situation, how and where we progress must be carefully considered.”

“I want him dead for what he did to my son,” Hizashi said, and Hiashi almost shivered at his brother’s voice. It wasn’t killing intent; he knew how to handle that. He’d been the head of the Hyuga clan through war, peace, and everything in between, after all. But he’d never seen his brother quite so coldly determined.

“Patience,” he said, instead of everything else he wanted to say.


	5. Sakura & Hayate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place during Chapter 5 of Infinite Sky

“How are you even still alive?” Sakura asked, although she would have had to check for illusion or insanity if the man in front of her actually answered. She knew what the answer should have been; Sai had apparently provided flawless first aid, which had been followed by Sasuke’s less skilled assistance. Still, enough blood had been on the floor instead of inside veins where it belonged that Sakura was still rather surprised that Kakashi had managed to not die.

The seals on the insides of his wrists had been broken, though; she made a mental note to get someone to repair them, just in case. She’d never seen that particular set of seals before, and had no idea what they did, but there was a reason they’d been inked into the skin.

The IV drip replacing lost fluids was the last item that needed placing; Sakura inserted the needle and started the flow, watching absently for a moment to make sure nothing was incorrectly placed.  She was already turning towards the door when someone knocked on it quietly.

Sakura opened the door to see a Leaf ninja on the other side; she was fairly sure he was a special jounin, although she couldn’t recall his name. “Has that been treated?” she asked, the question slipping out before she could rein it in; he looked unwell enough that she wouldn’t have blinked if he’d been wearing a hospital gown himself. But he wasn’t; he was in standard-issue blacks, complete with the vest and forehead protector.

“I’m looking for Kakashi,” the man said, lips twitching in half a smile.

“He’s in there and he’s not awake,” Sakura replied, edging out of the room and closing the door behind her. “You didn’t answer –“

“It’s nothing,” the man said. “Gekkou Hayate, by the way. Tell him I – no, don’t tell him. Never mind.”

The name was familiar to Sakura after all, if not the face; he’d been a case study a few years back, for creative and appropriate use of extremely limited chakra reserves. Not that the case study explained what he wanted with Kakashi.  “Is he a friend?” she asked tentatively.

“Not exactly,” Hayate said, glancing at the door behind her. “It’s a long story.”

“I can let you know when he’s awake,” Sakura offered. “He should be fine.”

“It might have been better for him if you’d just let him go,” Hayate said, an almost wistful look on his face.

There were a lot of answers she might give to that, and most of them weren’t particularly flattering. Even if Sakura agreed – she’d heard the rumors about Sharingan Kakashi’s particular brand of madness, after all – she’d taken an oath to preserve life, except when life had to be sacrificed for the good of the village. “That’s not my call to make,” Sakura said finally.

“Just don’t tell him I was here,” Hayate said. “And don’t tell me when he wakes up. I don’t need to know.”

“You must have come here for a reason.” Again, the words just slipped out. Sakura blamed exhaustion; it hadn’t been easy to stabilize Kakashi, even though she hadn’t been working alone, and she was already well past the end of her shift.

Hayate looked at her for a moment, his expression closely shuttered even for a ninja.  “It’s a very long story,” he said. “And not one I want to tell.”

“Um. Okay.” Sakura wasn’t sure how to respond to that; Hayate just nodded at her and walked away, footsteps echoing perfectly normally through the mostly empty hallways.


	6. Sai & Naruto (& Sasuke)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place during Chapter 7 of Infinite Sky

Sai leaned against the wall, keeping both undead Summons at the edge of his field of vision. If they moved, he’d be able to see it. He wrapped his hands around a cup of tea, having gone through Sasuke’s largely empty kitchen during a moment of boredom. It wasn’t that he thought Sasuke had specifically instructed the undead ninjas guarding his door not to let Sai leave again; Shisui had politely delivered a verbal request that Sai not leave until Sasuke returned while Fugaku lurked on the other side of the entryway, managing to sneer despite the mask covering his entire face. Sai just didn’t think either of the undead clones had the finesse or the inclination to distinguish between _ask him to stay_ and _don’t let him leave_.

There wasn’t much to the space. It had even less personality than the bedroom Sasuke had been using at Naruto’s house, what with the low table and still-packed bag on the floor and the rolled up futon in the corner. Nothing on the walls, no decoration anywhere, the only signs of ninja occupation the threads of chakra draped across every point of entry.

Sai couldn’t see them, but he knew they were there. He’d been trained to detect wards, and he was very good at it. He couldn’t have gotten around these particular wards without actually setting them off, but the act of opening the door from the inside had rearranged them enough for him to slip inside. It was a clever use of physical objects to manipulate chakra, and Sai thought he could see the seals concealed on the door itself that allowed for it. He would have liked a chance to examine them more closely, but Fugaku had shifted threateningly when Sai had leaned toward the nearest visible seal, and he’d backed off.

All of which was only a distraction for the question of what Sai was doing here to begin with; Sasuke had abruptly ended everything with no warning, with the coldest expression Sai had ever seen him wear, after he’d nearly let their joint mission fail because they’d run into trouble Sai was perfectly capable of handling alone. Sai had been stung that Sasuke thought he couldn’t take care of himself and torn between being touched that Sasuke apparently valued his wellbeing above a successful test of a new technique and being aggravated that Sasuke apparently valued his wellbeing above a successful test of a technique that could win them the war that Tobi didn’t know they were fighting.

The combined insult and uncertainty had come out as irritation, while Sai had patched himself up. Sasuke had to see that the test was more important than any individual’s wellbeing, even if Sai’s throat closed off at the thought of leaving Sasuke in a situation he couldn’t handle if it would help them win the war. The problem was that Sai hadn’t been out of his depth, and he’d been reasonably – he thought – annoyed that Sasuke hadn’t seen that.

Cutting the two of them apart entirely hadn’t seemed like the right response, although nothing in any of the books Naruto had given him had been applicable to the situation, so Sai had held onto his questions until he could ask an actual person. He’d been mortified that he’d been crying when he’d gone to Naruto, and yet unable to stop, and then it had come out that the irregularities in Sasuke’s chakra had actually been a psychic infestation.

Sai had wanted to see if his – he didn’t know what to call Sasuke, he found, not any more, but he’d wanted to make sure Sasuke was all right. Going to see him had presented Sai with a Sasuke who looked at him as though their final conversation had never happened, a Sasuke exhausted enough to fall asleep in the middle of Sai trying to figure out exactly what was going on. Sai hadn’t been sure what the proper response to that was, either, so he’d just left a living drawing to keep an eye on Sasuke.

Knocking on Sasuke’s door after hearing he’d been discharged from medical care had gotten Sai to where he was now; stuck in a tiny studio apartment with a pair of undead summons minutely cataloguing Sai’s every move. He wondered if he could climb out the bathroom window, but there was no bathroom window. Sai resigned himself to staying where he was, at least until Sasuke returned. There was a conversation to be had, and he intended to have it.

The tea in front of him had long since gone cold when the window rattled the rest of the way open and Sasuke clambered through it. He didn’t seem to see Sai leaning against the far wall in the dark, his face turning once toward the door where Shisui and Fugaku still stood before he closed the window. Sai shifted in preparation to stand up and ask Sasuke what was going on. Before he could so much as twitch, Sasuke moved toward the neat pile of futon in the corner, sat down next to it, and slowly tipped over. Sai blinked.

Chakra outside the window, moving away, alerted him to Naruto’s presence. Sai crossed the room and let his chakra travel outwards in a single slow pulse, eyeing the corner as he did so. Sasuke was apparently asleep, deeply enough that he didn’t even twitch as Sai’s chakra washed over him. Naruto abruptly reversed, materializing outside the window.

“What?” he said. “What’s wrong?”

“Yes,” Sai said, pointing at Sasuke.

Naruto sighed. “Apparently one of his many hidden talents is convincing the hospital staff that he has more chakra than he actually does.”

“You were following him home,” Sai said carefully, trying to read between the lines. He thought he’d gotten better at it. “Without him knowing.”

“He had no idea I was there at all,” Naruto said, rubbing his face with both hands. “I was actually kind of surprised he made it all the way back.”

“Would it be inappropriate of me to stay? To keep an eye on him?” Sai asked in a low voice.

“Wow.” Naruto folded his arms across his chest, looking between the two of them. “I can’t really answer that,” he said slowly.

“So it’s not unilaterally inappropriate,” Sai said, testing the hypothesis that whether or not he chose to stay had to do with how he wanted things to proceed.

“For what it’s worth,” Naruto said, uncharacteristically solemn, “I will be there for you, whatever happens, okay?”

“Thank you.” The words were awkward, not enough to express the gratitude and appreciation Sai felt for the person who’d been his closest friend ever since he had learned what friendship was. Naruto ruffled his hair as though he were Lee and dropped off the wall, vanishing down the street. Sai watched him go, and then turned to look at Sasuke.

Sasuke’s sandals were easy enough to remove, and Sai tossed them in the general direction of the door. He aimed them at neither undead clone, but he wasn’t surprised when Shisui caught them anyway and set them down silently. Getting Sasuke under a blanket was harder; he was an uncooperative dead weight, warm against Sai’s shoulder, but Sai managed to unroll the futon with one hand and maneuver Sasuke onto it with the other.

Sai pulled the blanket over Sasuke and started to stand; he wouldn’t stay, he’d decided, but at least Sasuke wouldn’t freeze before he woke. A loose grasp on his wrist might as well have been a metal tether holding him back, and Sai looked down to see Sasuke’s eyes half open, glittering in the dark.

“Don’t leave me,” Sasuke muttered, words slurring into each other, and Sai couldn’t deny that he was well and truly caught.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he whispered, and Sasuke relaxed back into sleep.

Sai wondered if banging his head against the wall would do any good, and decided that it wouldn’t. He crossed the room, taking up the same spot he’d occupied against the wall. It was hardly the worst place he’d ever slept.


	7. Zabuza, Haku, Kimimaro, & Juugo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place during Chapter 8 of Infinite Sky

“We move in at dusk,” Zabuza said, running the whetstone down the length of his sword and back. His squad paused in the various activities of making their final evening camp; Kimimaro was banking the fire, Juugo was pacing the perimeter, and Haku was making his way toward them with full canteens. The final island on their journey had been chosen for its natural earthworks and the presence of a freshwater spring; they would be spending the day underground in preparation for the strike the following night.

The timetable was even more accelerated than Zabuza would have guessed. He nearly hadn’t caught the message redirecting him from the route home to the heart of the Village of Hidden Mist, and it was only that very slight redirection that had kept him out of the way of the veritable army heading inland. _Better for us_ , he thought, but he wasn’t sure how that would affect the Village of the Hidden Leaf. For a moment, he wondered if it would have been better to take his children and disappear, but it was too late to back out now. Besides, he owed Tobi for a life spent on the run, and he wasn’t about to let that debt go unpaid.

“We know,” Haku said, smiling his gentle smile. Zabuza had checked and rechecked their weapons and gear almost obsessively throughout the journey from Whirlpool. All four of the strike team knew their chances of survival were minimal at best, but that didn’t stop Zabuza from wanting to give his protégés the best shot possible.

“Kimimaro?” Zabuza asked.

“I’m fine.” Kimimaro smiled, dismissing the lingering vestiges of what should have been a terminal illness that no one could treat. Zabuza eyed him, the second of his collected children.  Kimimaro’s physiology and biochemistry didn’t match up to anything in a normal human, even in a normal ninja, and when he’d become ill the previous year, it had been up to his own immune system to handle it or not.

Against the odds, Kimimaro had rallied and seemed to recover. He still moved more slowly than he should, although his hand to hand combat skills remained economically graceful and efficient. 

“Check your gear,” Zabuza said. Kimimaro rolled his eyes when he thought Zabuza wasn’t looking; he didn’t use weaponry the way most ninjas did, using his own skeleton as a weapon most of the time, but that hadn’t stopped Zabuza from training him in their use.

“I’ll take third watch,” Juugo said, pacing out of the dark and sitting crosslegged near the barely glowing fire. It was surrounded on all sides by an icy barrier covered with loose earth, keeping the heat close by in the unseasonably cold June morning and hopefully masking the glow of the fire from anyone outside the cave system.  The embers wouldn’t give off enough smoke to be visible, and would be doused before it was fully light in any case.

“I’ve got second,” Haku said quickly, setting a kettle of water over the embers for tea.

“I’ll take fourth,” Kimimaro said, breaking out the ration bars.  None of them ate meat around Juugo; his ability to talk to the animals around them made for uneasy eating, and there hadn’t been much in the way of edible plant life. The year had seemed to be made of endless winter and dim sunshine; not much was growing.

“There is no fourth,” Juugo said.  “You sleep.”

“Stop trying to coddle me,” Kimimaro said, displaying a rare flash of irritation.

“Your brother just wants you at your best tomorrow,” Zabuza said, inspecting his blade’s edge. It glinted in the dying light from the embers and in a stray gleam entering the mouth of the cave.  “Shut up and go to sleep. All of you. Haku, I’ll wake you when it’s time.”

“Yes, sir,” the three of them murmured in unison, and wrapped themselves in blankets. Despite his protests of not being tired, Kimimaro was asleep within seconds, Juugo curled against his back. Haku slept alone, one hand stretched out above his head toward his brothers.

Zabuza waited until all three of them were breathing evenly, chakra pulsing with the barely noticeable rhythm of shallow sleep, and went over their gear himself. All of them were dressed in charcoal grays to better blend into the dark, clothing tightly fit around the torso and looser around the joints to allow for freedom of movement. Light armor plating would protect Haku at his most vulnerable places; Kimimaro’s skin would be protected by his own bones and Juugo’s transformation should keep his skin more or less intact.

Haku was the only one with a complement of weapons that really needed checking; his needles and throwing blades were carefully arranged. Some were poisoned with a variety of toxins, some were just sharp and deadly. No one knew whether or not the Sacrifices would be vulnerable to poison, or even chakra manipulation through the proper placement of the needles. The other two hadn’t even touched the weapons on the road, not even for practice.

Then again, Zabuza reflected, it wasn’t as if either of them needed practice with blades or needles; both of them used the entire body as a living weapon. Juugo shifted in his sleep, pulling Kimimaro just a little closer, and, since no one was looking, Zabuza almost smiled.

The following morning, the small strike team would infiltrate the facility where the seven Sacrifices were kept, channeling chakra into the Nine Tails.  Only minimal information on its guards and fortifications had been collected, but Zabuza was fairly sure they could make their way in through the sewer systems underground. He knew the building well, after all; he’d graduated from the Mist Ninja Academy years before.  The current generation of Mist ninjas was trained at a different facility, one that didn’t have the ghost of Momochi Zabuza wandering the halls.

Zabuza grinned wolfishly, sharp teeth showing. He didn’t bother to wear a mask now, although he’d kept the Mist forehead protector. His strike team wore no forehead protectors, had nothing to show allegiance to anyone, but they’d all tattooed their upper arms with the symbol for shinobi. Zabuza had altered his own ANBU tattoo to match; they were a unit, after all. Not that he’d told them what he’d done, of course.

He woke Haku at the appointed time; his first child opened his eyes, waking neatly, but instead of silently taking watch, Haku asked a question.

“Why did you send the Hokage’s backup team on a different mission?”

The question had been in Haku’s eyes since Zabuza hadn’t followed the instructions he’d been given by their Leaf contact; truth be told, the thought of using the dead as weapons against the living made the hair stand up on the back of his neck. It wasn’t right. No matter that Zabuza had seen how the dead could be controlled, he didn’t trust them at his back. He didn’t trust that they wouldn’t turn on his team instead of trying to free the Sacrifices.

The irony of said lack of trust when Zabuza had Juugo at his back wasn’t lost on him.

The clear implication that Zabuza should try to save the Sacrifices rather than simply kill the hosts and disperse the Tailed Beasts hadn’t been spoken explicitly enough for him to even pretend he’d heard and would obey them. As far as Zabuza was concerned, the Sacrifices were better off dead. Not, however, that he was about to explain any of this to Haku.

“Better for us if we have a distraction,” he said instead, rolled himself into his blanket to forestall any further questions, and fell into a light sleep; the rest of the night passed without incident, although he was perfectly aware of Haku changing watches with Juugo.  The light from the setting sun had nearly dissipated entirely when Juugo placed a hand on his shoulder.

“It’s time,” Juugo said. “We only have a few hours.”

Zabuza scowled at his protégé taking the words from his mouth; the summer nights were short and every minute precious, and he’d apparently reminded them often enough.  Juugo smiled tightly, one of the first signs that he was starting to slip into one of his murderous and uncontrollable rages. Zabuza said nothing; Juugo knew how important it was that he try to maintain control, and anything anyone said would only make the process harder.

Haku buried the remains of the fire under ice after the four of them ate just enough for energy, and the final stage of the journey began. By Zabuza’s calculations, the outlet for the clean and treated water running off into the ocean that would be their entry point would be barely an hour’s walk away. From there, the entire Village of Hidden Mist would be theirs to enter as they pleased. His calculations were correct to the minute, even with Juugo becoming more tightly wound with each passing moment.

The water pouring out of the waste pipe was cool, matching the surrounding ocean. It touched none of them except Juugo, thanks to a subtle application of chakra. Kimimaro’s hand, wrapped around Juugo’s wrist, grew steadily wetter as well.

The tunnels themselves had no guards, at least not along the edges, but seals and traps lined the walls. Zabuza disabled most of them, with Haku taking care of the rest. Kimimaro kept Juugo centered and sane and moving forward instead of destroying everything around them in a fit of rage; they were following plan B-7.

Halfway into the tunnel, not quite to where Zabuza was fairly sure the Academy pipes started, the first patrol surfaced. Two white-skinned yellow-eyed clones dropped from the ceiling, shimmering against the wet stone, and Juugo ripped both of their throats out almost faster than Zabuza could see.  The two bodies dropped into the water with barely a splash.  Zabuza secured all body parts before they floated off to raise some sort of alarm and raised an eyebrow at his team.

“It’s too early,” Haku whispered, voice too low to echo over the rushing water and other more questionable fluids below their feet.  Juugo was staring at his brother, eyes slowly losing all sense of reason.

Kimimaro wrapped both arms around Juugo, whispering in his ear before pushing him to point position. “Hurry,” he said, and Zabuza started to run.

Juugo took out the second and third patrols as well, barely pausing in his rush forward and giving Zabuza no time to ensure the bodies didn’t float off. He barely had time to direct Juugo’s headlong rush as it was, and then the access tunnel Zabuza had thought would lead to the Academy turned out to set them into the street behind it.

“Wait,” Zabuza said, and Juugo tried to scream.  Kimimaro wrapped him in bone, both hands over his mouth.

“Hold the fuck still,” he said, but Juugo just thrashed harder.

“Haku, get the door open before someone hears,” Zabuza hissed.  Haku worked faster than Zabuza had ever seen, and then the first distraction finally came into play. Explosions sounded from the other side of the city, the undead suicide unit leading Tobi’s eye elsewhere. The Academy gate swung open and the strike team darted inside, Kimimaro hauling Juugo.

Plan B-7 had called for them to track the Sacrifices by their chakra, but the Tailed Beasts’ energy was so thick in the air that Zabuza could almost taste it. There was no way to discern which direction had a stronger concentration. Time to switch to plan E-8.

“Split up. Kimimaro, Haku, if you find something, signal.” The first pre-arranged signal was a chakra flare, but they probably wouldn’t be able to feel it in the murk of the Tailed Beasts. Zabuza handed them each one of the physical flares paired with miniature percussion bombs; they would be noisy and were a last resort.

“I should kill you all first,” Juugo snarled, nothing but rage in his eyes.  Kimimaro backed off, retracting his bone spurs.

“Whatever’s in there will die harder,” Zabuza told him, and Juugo crashed through the nearest window.  He was loud enough to attract every guard Zabuza saw, and furious enough to tear them to pieces before he was out of sight.

Zabuza picked a hallway and inched his way along the ceiling; if he had been Tobi, he knew exactly where in the building he’d keep the Sacrifices.  Guards rushed by below him, heading for the chaos Juugo was creating. From the sounds of it, Juugo was still in the throes of fury and wouldn’t be running out of steam any time soon. Zabuza beheaded the occasional guard who looked up; most of those who did were human Mist ninjas, not wooden white-skinned clones.

“Zetsu,” Zabuza muttered, finally remembering the name as he reached the main auditorium. It was empty, no sign of the Sacrifices. A dozen Zetsu clones were on the ceiling when he entered the auditorium, though, and they died hard. He was bleeding in several places by the time he dropped to the floor, but all the clones had been dismembered. He wiped off his blade on one of them and had one foot on the wall when Haku’s percussion bomb went off.

At almost the same time, all sounds of Juugo’s rampage ceased. Zabuza forced his heart out of his throat and shoved the flare of worry for Juugo away; they had a mission.  He darted up to the ceiling and ran toward Haku.  Kimimaro skidded around a corner below him, and Zabuza just barely stopped himself from burying his sword in his protégé’s skull.

“Go, go!” he hissed when another patrol burst through a doorway.  Kimimaro ran past them as Zabuza flung blades at their throats. One sank home, but the other guard dodged; he was human, a Mist ninja. Zabuza grinned at him as the Tailed Beast chakra permeating the air thinned and simplified; Haku had taken out at least one of them already.

“Do you know who I am?” he taunted.  The guard was good enough to delay him, but not for long. Zabuza’s sword bisected the man’s chest, blood and more spilling over the already slick floor. Zabuza ran along the walls, reaching the Academy’s front hallway to see a scene of total nightmare chaos.

Haku was already on the ground, unmoving; Zabuza couldn’t tell if he was dead or not, but at least three of the Sacrifices were sprawled around him, and they were all clearly incapacitated. More guards than Zabuza could count without stopping were heaped on the floor, precisely placed needles a silent display of Haku’s considerable skill. No more were coming through the doors, but with Juugo silent it was only a matter of time.

The other four Sacrifices were shackled to the wall, their chakra bubbling and boiling around them as they lashed out. Kimimaro was struggling, unable to get closer to any of them.  Zabuza let his momentum carry him forward, hands flashing to summon the water dragon. It crashed over the four bodies chained to the wall, melting into steam, but giving the two of them enough leeway to breathe.  A flung bone spur caught the Three Tails Sacrifice in the throat, and the host choked and died. The chakra in the air thinned and simplified again, but the remaining three Tailed Beasts went into renewed frenzy.

Zabuza flung himself sideways to avoid one massive tentacle, landing right in the path of another. He barely managed to twist around enough to bounce off the wall with his feet, left shoulder dislocated, the sword in his right hand scoring a deep cut along the Eight Tails manifesting form.  A second tentacle slammed into the back of his head, and from there the fight was a blur. Zabuza heard the Eight Tails howl, and he thrust chakra through the soles of his feet, sticking to the Eight Tails and darting toward its host.  It threw him off, but not before Kimimaro beheaded its Sacrifice.

The rattle of chains hitting the floor echoed Zabuza’s feet hitting the ground hard enough to rattle his teeth in his skull again, and he raced toward the now free host for the Four Tails. The Six Tails was right behind it, neither of them with any humanity in their faces at all. Zabuza raised his sword as the Six Tails stalked toward him.

Juugo came out of nowhere, barreling into the Six Tails as the Four Tails pounced on Kimimaro. Juugo and the Six Tails tumbled across the floor and Zabuza beheaded the Four Tails from behind just barely too late to stop it from ripping out Kimimaro’s heart. He spun to face the tangled mess of Juugo and the Six Tails, reaching them just as Juugo ripped the Sacrifice in half and followed it in crashing to the ground hard. He was bleeding from almost every bit of exposed skin Zabuza could see.

“Zabuza.” Haku coughed from halfway across the room, staggering to his feet. Relief flooded through Zabuza that at least one of his protégés had survived, and he scooped Juugo up with his uninjured arm, sparing a glance for Kimimaro’s body, but there was no time to take care of it. Haku grabbed his left arm and shoved the joint back into place as he fell into step beside him, and Zabuza muffled the scream of pain. Haku, despite his own injuries, pulled Kimimaro across his shoulders and staggered after Zabuza.

The single patrol they saw on their way out towards the door still went down to Haku’s deadly aim, though, and Zabuza felt a swell of pride.

The second distraction was well under way when they stumbled outside into the afternoon sunlight; no one was waiting for them and they made it down the access hatch without incident.  Zabuza could see the trail they were leaving, though, and it was only a matter of time before someone figured out where they’d gone.

The underground tunnels blurred and doubled before Zabuza’s eyes, and he would never be quite sure how they made it back to the rendezvous point. The single figure waiting for them was something of a surprise – Zabuza hadn’t thought any of the dead would come out on the other side of the fight, resurrected spirits or no, and briefly wondered if that meant he hadn’t survived either. He thought it should have been someone else from the Whirlpool outpost, but maybe the fighting wasn’t going all that well after all.

“You’re still alive, kid,” said the woman, striding forward and easing Juugo’s broken body off of his shoulders. Haku had already laid Kimimaro down and moved quietly to stand by Zabuza’s side.

“You aren’t,” Zabuza said, not asking where her two companions had gone. The noise outside was a clear enough indication of that. “Take care of him.” Tsunade was already working.

“No,” Juugo said, and Zabuza froze.  Tsunade ignored them both, and Zabuza knelt at Juugo’s other side, Haku once again beside him.

“You’re going to be fine,” Haku said. Zabuza just stayed where Juugo could see him, resting one bloodstained hand on Juugo’s battered wrist.

“No,” Juugo said again, and smiled. “No place for me, when this is over.”

“Don’t say that.” Haku leaned forward, tracing down Juugo’s untouched face with one gentle hand. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

“Kimimaro’s gone. No one else can stop me.” Juugo’s breath hitched. “I don’t want…” He clung to Zabuza’s hand, no strength in his grip.  “I don’t…” he said again.

“Tell him to stop willing himself to die,” Tsunade snapped, hands flashing over the wreck of Juugo’s torso. The white of bone showed through the red of blood and darker colors. The litany of Juugo’s injuries played out distantly in the back of Zabuza’s mind, but he’d seen his protégé walk away from wounds that would have killed anyone else. There was no reason he shouldn’t walk away from this. “I can heal this,” Tsunade said.

“This is better,” Juugo whispered, barely loud enough to hear.

“This is not better.”  Haku’s face was wet, tears falling freely. “I – we don’t want to lose you, too.”

“Live,” Zabuza said, and wrapped his other hand around Juugo’s cold fingers.

“Love you, too,” Juugo whispered, and then he was gone.

“Goddamn son of a bitch!” Tsunade slammed her hands into the ground, the earth cracking beneath her palms. “He doesn’t –“

Zabuza watched as she tried unsuccessfully to revive his third protégé, Haku pressed tightly against his side.  Two of his children were gone. 

“I’m sorry,” Tsunade said finally, sitting back on her heels. “I can’t…”

“I know,” Zabuza said. “We have work to do.”

“You both have injuries that need to be treated,” Tsunade growled. “I can tell from here that you’re seeing double, and the other one has more broken bones than I can count.”

“Haku,” Zabuza said distantly. “This is Haku.”  He was _not_ seeing double; it was just that everything else was refusing to remain properly in its place.  “We have work to do,” he said again, and Tsunade threw her hands in the air.

“So help me, if you keel over in the middle of whatever you’re doing, I’m not taking responsibility for it.”

He squeezed Haku’s shoulder and made his way toward Kimimaro.  Haku followed, silent and dull-eyed, as Zabuza did the last thing he could for his boys. Tsunade waited, quietly, offering a steadying hand but not interfering. Zabuza made sure that the secrets of the bloodline limits his protégés had carried would never be revealed, and that neither of them would ever be able to be recalled the way Tsunade had been.

It was hard, harder than it should have been, but his hands remained steady until the end.

“Let’s go,” Zabuza said. There were fighters who needed backup, now that his primary mission had been completed. Even if Tobi won against the Village of the Hidden Leaf, he was going to return home to a smoking crater.


End file.
